The ASB Bank has released its housing confidence survey for July, and this suggests "a greater proportion of people see now as a good time to buy". The "good time to buy" opinion rose from -9% in the three months to April, to +9% in the three months to July. But this same survey showed even more clearly that New Zealanders expect prices to keep falling. An overwhelming 56% of respondents expected prices to fall from here, the weakest reading in this survey by a substantial margin. The survey began in 1996. 64% expect lower prices, while only 8% thought prices would rise, and the difference between these two gives the net index reading.